Into the Great Wide Open ’17
Festivals could be seen as the modern equivalent of a religious experience: a large group of people uniting in collective ecstasy to celebrate a mystical force. Where ceremonies like these used to be led by a priest or village elder, nowadays it’s often the musician who transports us to another plane of existence. God is a DJ.
The narrative aspect of religious traditions inspired the images for the 2017 edition of Into The Great Wide Open, which was based around the theme of voodoo. Voodoo is often misunderstood to be a form of witchcraft, but historically it’s an Afro-American mixture of various religions drenched with music, ceremonies and a strong visual symbolism.
Using the all-seeing-eye as a marker, my distinctly average Illustrator skills doodled into life a new pantheon of gods and mythological creatures. A wild bunch alluding to Orishas, storm-gods and children’s books characters alike – some of which must have crept into my subconscious through reading books with my kids at night.
Into The Great Wide Open
2017
Annimation
Rogier van der Zwaag
Sound design
Sjam Sjamsjoedin
Photography festival
Robin Alysha Clemens
Related to
Into The Great Wide Open ’18